Deadline: August 12, 2026
Selling into the EU from the US or UK? A new packaging rule lands on August 12, 2026.
The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) starts applying on August 12, 2026. Buried in it is Article 45: producers outside the EU have to appoint an authorised representative for packaging in the member states they sell into. If you run a small shop that ships parcels to EU customers, that sentence is about you.
This site does one job: tell you, in plain English, which packaging registrations your shop actually needs, what they cost from real providers, and which dates matter. No scare tactics. Most of these duties are cheap to meet once you know they exist.
The three things to know
- Germany already checks. Germany's packaging law has no small-seller exemption, and marketplaces block sellers without a LUCID registration number. If you ship to Germany and have never heard of LUCID, start with the Germany page.
- France works through eco-organisms. You join one (usually through a French-established representative) and get an ID number. Details on the France page.
- August 12, 2026 adds an EU-wide duty for non-EU sellers. The pending EU relief package pauses the authorised-representative duty for EU companies only, so the date stands for sellers in the US and UK. The provider market for this is young. See Providers for who sells it and at what price.